***Our plans have changed around a few times since this first post! Changes are in red.***
Well hello there friends! While I've been reading and loving all your trip reports, I'm finally back to tell you about a new trip of my own
.
WHO:
My name is Ashton. Just your fellow Disney addict with a slight coffee obsession (particularly the Dunkin' Donuts variety).
Here I am two Halloweens ago, trying to bring some Disney spirit to my office:
My traveling buddy is my husband Jonathan, J for short. Here we are riding the TTA on our trip from this past July:
I have a full trip report from our August 2015 trip and a pre-trip from our short, two day trip in July 2016 if you'd like to check those out. Unfortunately my phone bit the dust shortly after our July trip, before I had a chance to upload any of our pictures to my computer, so I wasn't able to complete a trip report for that one
.
WHY:
2017 was supposed to be the year of no Disney. Actually, it was supposed to be the year of no big trips at all as we have some financial goals we're working really hard towards. Of course, not going to Disney bummed me out but I was trying really hard to look at the big picture.
Then, halfway through January, I hear about a charity raffle where one of the prizes is two sets of 5 Day Park Hopper passes. Being that it was for a good cause I decided to enter, hoping but never really thinking I would win. Well there must have been some pixie dust floating my way because wouldn't you know it - I WON THE TICKETS!!!
I literally called J freaking out. I'm pretty sure I was in shock - I kept saying "Did I really win?" over and over again.
It is not my intention to brag - I am just incredibly thankful and grateful!
With such a big part of the cost taken care of, we just couldn't pass up taking a trip. I'M GOING BACK TO DISNEY!!!
WHEN:
May 13th, 2017 - May 20th, 2017
Our last two trips have been in July and August and while we definitely made them work and had a great time, I really didn't want to go in the dead of summer again. The fall/winter is also tricky for us so May seemed like as good a time as any.
Plus, I'm really excited we'll be there for the Flower and Garden festival since the pictures I've seen of EPCOT are beautiful! I'm also hoping it won't be quite as painfully hot and maybe not quite as rainy but it's Florida so who knows.
Also, we'll be gone during Mother's Day weekend which bums me out a little bit but both our Mom's are so excited for us to go and told us it's totally fine. We are going to make sure to celebrate with them both before we leave.
WHERE:
May 13th-17th : Walt Disney World Swan
May 17th-20th: Carribean Beach (Originally Wilderness Lodge)
I CANNOT BELIEVE WE'RE STAYING THIS CLOSE TO EPCOT/HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AND MAGIC KINGDOM IN MY FIRST DELUXE ALL IN ONE TRIP!!!! **Lol there's always next time right?**
Can you tell I'm a little excited?
I seriously cannot put into words how magical this trip has become. Shortly after I won the tickets, we were all set and ready to book All Start Music as it was the only Value available for our dates at the time and again, we were trying to make sure it was reasonably priced. Then, J's dad asked if there were any Starwood hotels on property because he had a bunch of points built up that he wasn't planning on using and offered them to us if we wanted them.
Well of course being crazy Disney lover I am and planning random trips in my head all the time, I knew the Swan and Dolphin are in the Starwood group. A few hours later, J's dad let us know the Swan had availability for our requested dates and he had enough points for 4 nights if we wanted to use them.
I was over the moon. I asked several times if he was sure he wanted us to use them as I didn't want to take them if he thought there was even a small chance he might use them, but he assured me he really did want us to have them - we just needed to pay the resort & parking fee and we'd be squared away.
At first, we were just going to pay out of pocket at the Swan for the remaining two nights but I decided to check the other resort prices just in case. I knew we didn't want to go from the Swan to ASM and since we had even more room in the budget, we decided to go with a moderate.
THEN, I saw the Wilderness Lodge was priced only a little bit higher than POR (our original choice) so how could we say no to that?!?
Just like that it was booked! Now here I am pinching myself that we'll be able to spend part of our trip so close to the Boardwalk and EPCOT (J's favorite park) and part of our trip close to MK (my favorite park) and at one of my dream resorts! I know the Wilderness Lodge is still going through construction but I honestly don't care - I'm excited anyway!!!
If you made it this far I appreciate you reading all my rambling.
So here were are folks, I went from not having any Disney plans for the foreseeable future to now being in double digits in our countdown. Dreams really do come true.
NEXT UP:
ADRs and daily plans!
Well hello there friends! While I've been reading and loving all your trip reports, I'm finally back to tell you about a new trip of my own
.WHO:
My name is Ashton. Just your fellow Disney addict with a slight coffee obsession (particularly the Dunkin' Donuts variety).
Here I am two Halloweens ago, trying to bring some Disney spirit to my office:
My traveling buddy is my husband Jonathan, J for short. Here we are riding the TTA on our trip from this past July:
I have a full trip report from our August 2015 trip and a pre-trip from our short, two day trip in July 2016 if you'd like to check those out. Unfortunately my phone bit the dust shortly after our July trip, before I had a chance to upload any of our pictures to my computer, so I wasn't able to complete a trip report for that one
.WHY:
2017 was supposed to be the year of no Disney. Actually, it was supposed to be the year of no big trips at all as we have some financial goals we're working really hard towards. Of course, not going to Disney bummed me out but I was trying really hard to look at the big picture.
Then, halfway through January, I hear about a charity raffle where one of the prizes is two sets of 5 Day Park Hopper passes. Being that it was for a good cause I decided to enter, hoping but never really thinking I would win. Well there must have been some pixie dust floating my way because wouldn't you know it - I WON THE TICKETS!!!
I literally called J freaking out. I'm pretty sure I was in shock - I kept saying "Did I really win?" over and over again.
It is not my intention to brag - I am just incredibly thankful and grateful!
With such a big part of the cost taken care of, we just couldn't pass up taking a trip. I'M GOING BACK TO DISNEY!!!
WHEN:
May 13th, 2017 - May 20th, 2017
Our last two trips have been in July and August and while we definitely made them work and had a great time, I really didn't want to go in the dead of summer again. The fall/winter is also tricky for us so May seemed like as good a time as any.
Plus, I'm really excited we'll be there for the Flower and Garden festival since the pictures I've seen of EPCOT are beautiful! I'm also hoping it won't be quite as painfully hot and maybe not quite as rainy but it's Florida so who knows.
Also, we'll be gone during Mother's Day weekend which bums me out a little bit but both our Mom's are so excited for us to go and told us it's totally fine. We are going to make sure to celebrate with them both before we leave.
WHERE:
May 13th-17th : Walt Disney World Swan
May 17th-20th: Carribean Beach (Originally Wilderness Lodge)
I CANNOT BELIEVE WE'RE STAYING THIS CLOSE TO EPCOT/HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AND MAGIC KINGDOM IN MY FIRST DELUXE ALL IN ONE TRIP!!!! **Lol there's always next time right?**
Can you tell I'm a little excited?
I seriously cannot put into words how magical this trip has become. Shortly after I won the tickets, we were all set and ready to book All Start Music as it was the only Value available for our dates at the time and again, we were trying to make sure it was reasonably priced. Then, J's dad asked if there were any Starwood hotels on property because he had a bunch of points built up that he wasn't planning on using and offered them to us if we wanted them.
Well of course being crazy Disney lover I am and planning random trips in my head all the time, I knew the Swan and Dolphin are in the Starwood group. A few hours later, J's dad let us know the Swan had availability for our requested dates and he had enough points for 4 nights if we wanted to use them.
I was over the moon. I asked several times if he was sure he wanted us to use them as I didn't want to take them if he thought there was even a small chance he might use them, but he assured me he really did want us to have them - we just needed to pay the resort & parking fee and we'd be squared away.
At first, we were just going to pay out of pocket at the Swan for the remaining two nights but I decided to check the other resort prices just in case. I knew we didn't want to go from the Swan to ASM and since we had even more room in the budget, we decided to go with a moderate.
THEN, I saw the Wilderness Lodge was priced only a little bit higher than POR (our original choice) so how could we say no to that?!?
Just like that it was booked! Now here I am pinching myself that we'll be able to spend part of our trip so close to the Boardwalk and EPCOT (J's favorite park) and part of our trip close to MK (my favorite park) and at one of my dream resorts! I know the Wilderness Lodge is still going through construction but I honestly don't care - I'm excited anyway!!!
If you made it this far I appreciate you reading all my rambling
. So here were are folks, I went from not having any Disney plans for the foreseeable future to now being in double digits in our countdown. Dreams really do come true
.NEXT UP:
ADRs and daily plans!
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